Dark Knight
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(AP) As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her dogs.
She pleaded. "I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring," the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday.
They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive.
Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in the midst of evacuation.
In one example reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans. "Snowball! Snowball!" the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.
"People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?'" he said. "It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving."
Valerie Bennett left her dogs with an anesthesiologist who was taking care of about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.
"He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could," Valerie Bennett recalled, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.
The Bennetts had four animals, including their two beloved dogs Lorne's English springer spaniel, Oreo, and Valerie's miniature dachshund, Lady.
They moved to Slidell, La., in July when Valerie took a job at an organ transplant institute connected to Lindy Boggs. Lorne, a former paramedic, is disabled since undergoing a liver transplant in 2001.
On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.
Patients were evacuated starting Monday by rescue workers using small boats to traverse the floodwaters surrounding the hospital. On Wednesday night, the Bennetts were told they had to go, too.
They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.
"I just hope that they forgive me," Valerie Bennett cried.
They handed the dogs to the anesthesiologist. Valerie got his last name but no cell phone number. "I wasn't thinking," she said.
But on Saturday afternoon, Valerie Bennett said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still at Lindy Boggs caring for the animals.
___
On the Net: http://www.petfinder.com
She pleaded. "I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring," the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday.
They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive.
Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in the midst of evacuation.
In one example reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans. "Snowball! Snowball!" the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.
"People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?'" he said. "It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving."
Valerie Bennett left her dogs with an anesthesiologist who was taking care of about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.
"He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could," Valerie Bennett recalled, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.
The Bennetts had four animals, including their two beloved dogs Lorne's English springer spaniel, Oreo, and Valerie's miniature dachshund, Lady.
They moved to Slidell, La., in July when Valerie took a job at an organ transplant institute connected to Lindy Boggs. Lorne, a former paramedic, is disabled since undergoing a liver transplant in 2001.
On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.
Patients were evacuated starting Monday by rescue workers using small boats to traverse the floodwaters surrounding the hospital. On Wednesday night, the Bennetts were told they had to go, too.
They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.
"I just hope that they forgive me," Valerie Bennett cried.
They handed the dogs to the anesthesiologist. Valerie got his last name but no cell phone number. "I wasn't thinking," she said.
But on Saturday afternoon, Valerie Bennett said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still at Lindy Boggs caring for the animals.
___
On the Net: http://www.petfinder.com
but the humane society will get in there when they can and start rescuing & housing abandoned pets.
